Rise of ZomBert

by Kara LaReau

“I should never have rescued Bert from that recycling barrel. What was I thinking?” I said. “Now he’s on the loose. What if he tries to attack someone else? What if little animal brains aren’t enough for him anymore? What if he’s craving something . . . bigger?”

  Danny squinted at me. “Did you get any sleep last night, Mellie? You have really dark circles under your eyes, and your voice sounds weird.”

  I stopped pedaling and looked at my reflection in the window of the YummCo Pet Store. I did look really awful. And then I had a terrible thought. I looked at Danny.

  “What if I’m turning into a zombie, too?” I asked.

  Danny grabbed me by the shoulders and looked me in the eyes.

  “Have you been bitten by Bert, or by anyone or anything else lately?” he asked.

  “No,” I admitted.

  He took off his Lambert Yumms baseball hat and leaned toward me. “Do you want to bite me?”

  “No,” I said, finally.

  “Well,” Danny said, “we’ll have to monitor you closely over the next forty-eight hours, but I think you’re fine.”

  That made me feel a little bit better, though I knew I’d feel a lot better when I could apologize to Carl. But it turned out he wasn’t in school. When Mr. James noted his absence during morning roll call, I knew something was really wrong.

  Was Carl sick? Was Chunk sick? Was Chunk a zombie? Was everyone in the Weems family now a zombie?

  I spent the whole day with all of these questions spinning around in my brain. I couldn’t even pay attention during Danny’s salmonella presentation, even though it was just the combination of gross and interesting I usually like.

  “It’s too bad my mom couldn’t get me real slides of salmonella bacteria from the YummCo Foods lab. My drawings just don’t do them justice,” Danny said as we rode home.

  “Uh-huh,” I said.

  “If Bert really is a zombie cat, it’s probably a good thing he wasn’t taken to YummCo Animal Pals, where he could infect everyone,” he said, pointing at one of the brown-and-green flyers we’d hung up the day before. “The last thing we need around here is an army of zombie pets.”

  “Mmm,” I said.

  “Earth to Mellie,” Danny said, snapping his fingers. “Are you even listening?”

  “Sorry, I’ve gotta go,” I said. “There’s something I have to do!”

  “Aren’t you supposed to go straight home after school?” Danny yelled after me.

  But I didn’t have time to answer. I pedaled as fast as I could, and I didn’t stop until I got to the Weems’s house. It seemed quiet; I hoped that was because no one was home from work yet, and not because Bert had already gotten to them. I took my chances and rang the doorbell.

  For a while, nothing happened. And then the door opened.

  Standing there was a woman. Her face and hands and clothes were splattered with something sticky and shiny . . . and red.

  “Aaah!” I said, jumping back.

  “Oh, dear!” she said, looking down at herself. “I must be a sight. Sorry I didn’t hear you ring at first — I was back in my crafting room, varnishing a chair.”

  “Hi,” I said. I took a second to catch my breath. “Um . . . is Carl home?”

  Her eyes widened. “You’re here to see Carl?”

  “Why?” I asked. “Is he all right?”

  “He’s fine,” she said. “Are you . . . a friend of his?”

  “From school,” I explained.

  “Well, isn’t that wonderful?” she clapped her hands together. “Carl! Someone is here to see you — a friend, from school!”

  After a couple of minutes, Carl padded down the stairs. He was wearing sweatpants and no shoes and his hair was kind of messed up, but at least he wasn’t a zombie. His eyes narrowed when he saw me in the doorway.

  “I’ll leave you two to talk about school things,” his mother said. “Let me know if you want me to fix you a snack!”

  “What are you doing here?” he asked, after his mom had gone back to her crafting.

  “I — I came to see how you were,” I said.

  “I’m fine,” Carl said. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

  “Well, you weren’t at school today,” I explained. “And, um, I also wanted to apologize. For the thing with Bert the other day. I’m sorry that you fell off your bike. And I hope Chunk and Zoomer are okay.”

  “They’re fine, too,” Carl said.

  “They are? So, you found Chunk? Is he all right?” I asked.

  “Sort of,” Carl said. His eyes drifted upstairs, then back to me. “You wanna see?”

  I wasn’t sure I did, but I followed him anyway. What did he mean by “sort of”?

  I’d never been inside Carl’s house. It was very quiet, unlike our house, and it smelled nice, like flowers. Carl led me into his room. His curtains and sheets had rocket ships on them, and there were stars all over his ceiling.

  “I didn’t know you liked outer space,” I said.

  “My mom did all this, when I was little,” he explained. “But yeah, I still think space is pretty cool.”

  “It is cool,” I said.

  “Squeak-squeak-squeak!”

  The noise was coming from one of the cages next to Carl’s bed.

  “Why do you have two cages now?” I asked.

  “Look,” he said, pointing.

  I peered into the cages. Zoomer was in the old cage with the skull-and-crossbones stickers all over it, and he was running around frantically. Chunk was in the other cage. But he wasn’t alone. There was something pink and gray and shiny and lumpy with him.

  “Is that . . . a brain?” I cried.

  “Duh,” said Carl. “It’s babies.”

  I blinked, looking closer at the cage.

  “But . . . Chunk is a boy rat,” I said.

  “Evidently not,” Carl said. “That’s why Chunk was so fat. She was already pregnant when we got her from the pet store. I guess she was ready to have her babies the other day, and busted out of the cage. We found her under our back porch this morning, along with all these little guys. Aren’t they cute?”

  I looked at the hairless gray-and-pink babies all around Chunk. Their eyes hadn’t even opened yet. Cute was not a word I would use to describe them. Piled together like that, they really did look like a brain.

  I exhaled.

  “That’s great,” I said. “I’m glad everyone is okay.”

  “My mom let me stay home so I could watch them today. She called it my paternity leave,” Carl explained.

  “More like rat-ernity leave,” I said.

  “Ha-ha,” Carl said. “So, um, I’m sorry I blamed ZomBert — I mean, Bert. I was just worried.”

  “I know,” I said. “Actually, I was, too.”

  Carl and I stood there and looked at the rat babies for a few more minutes. And that’s when it struck me: even though everyone laughed at Carl’s mean, dumb jokes at school, he didn’t have any real friends. Everyone was too scared of him, except for me and Danny. The only time I ever saw him around the neighborhood was when he was pestering us. Could Carl Weems, aka our archnemesis, actually be . . . lonely?

  Finally, I cleared my throat. “So, do you want to hang out sometime? Since you like outer space, maybe you and Danny and I could go to the planetarium,” I said.

  For a second, I thought Carl was about to smile. But then he wrinkled his nose.

  “And be seen with the Weirdo Twins? Uh, no thanks,” he said.

  “Oooookay,” I said. “Well, I’m going to go now. Bye.”

  “Yeah, bye,” Carl said. He didn’t even look at me; he was sticking his fingers through the cage bars, making kissy noises at Chunk and her babies.

  As I rode home, part of me was hurt that Carl would never see me and Danny as anything other than the Weirdo Twins. But another part of me felt worse for Carl. Deep down, I think he really did want to go to the planetarium.

  When I got home, Danny was sitting on my front stoop.

  “What’s wrong?�
� I said.

  “I was going to ask you that. The way you ran off, I thought you really were turning into a zombie,” Danny said. “Where did you go?”

  I got off my bike and sat down with Danny and told him the whole story about Carl and Chunk and Zoomer and the babies. And how I apologized to Carl and he apologized to me. When I got to the description of Carl’s outer space – themed bedroom, Danny started laughing. His laugh sounds like a squirrel inhaling helium, so I couldn’t help laughing, too.

  “So Carl Weems is a secret space nerd,” Danny said. “Not so secret anymore, though.”

  “I’m not going to tell anyone. I’m sure he’ll reveal his true self when he’s ready,” I said.

  “It’s a bummer about Bert, though,” Danny said. “I have to admit, I kind of hoped he’d turned Chunk into a zombie. That would have been so cool.”

  “So cool? Maybe in a movie or a comic book. Not cool at all in real life,” I noted.

  “You’re probably right,” Danny said. “So, if Bert isn’t a zombie cat, what’s the deal with eating animal heads, and those yellow eyes, and that missing ear, and how his fur was all patchy?”

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. “And if Bert doesn’t come back, maybe we’ll never know.”

  “I hope that’s not true, but if it is, I’ll miss him,” Danny said. “I liked that Bert wasn’t normal. Normal is boring.”

  “True,” I said.

  Danny checked his watch. “Hey, I gotta go. It’s Wednesday, so Mom and I are ordering Chinese.”

  I gave Danny a nod. I know Chinese food is his favorite, and he knows I know.

  “See you tomorrow,” I said. “Hey, do you want to go to the planetarium this weekend? I can see if my parents will take us, since I’m still not allowed to free-range.”

  “Sure,” Danny said. “Do you want to help me edit my movie this weekend, too? I can probably bring everything I need over to your house. I want to combine the Gone Ghoul footage with the footage I took of Bert. I’m thinking of renaming it Rise of ZomBert.”

  I sighed. “Sounds like a winner,” I said.

  He stared at the lab on the other side of the fence. He’d been coming here each night, cutting through the cemetery and then standing on this spot, staring and thinking.

  It had been just over a week since he’d found his freedom, but it seemed like forever. All that time, he remembered his promise to the others: he would come back for them. But now, the hole in the fence had been patched, and the chain link pulsed with a new energy. It was electrified, he could tell. He knew getting back in wouldn’t be easy, but this was an unexpected challenge.

  Then again, he wasn’t the same weak, bloodied animal who’d passed out in a barrel of garbage. Now, he was . . . different. And now he had help — from the girl with the gentle hands, and the curious boy. Whatever the challenges might be, he felt ready. He would fulfill his promise to the others and rescue them. And he would fulfill his promise to himself, and exact revenge.

  But first, there was something he needed to do.

  For the next two days, Bert still wasn’t under the rhododendron bush. All I could do was wonder where he was and if he was okay.

  “What’s the matter, Mellie-Mel? You haven’t touched your lasagna,” my mom said at dinner.

  “I made it with extra cheese,” my father pointed out. “Just the way you like it.”

  It was just the way I like it. And it was warm. A couple of days before, my parents had made a new rule: no cameras, costumes, or props at the table. It felt nice to have us all focused on the food and one another. It was like we were a real family again, instead of an ad for Family, Food, and Fun.

  Too bad I still had other things to worry about. Well, one thing in particular.

  “I was just thinking about Bert,” I said.

  “Well,” my mom said, “your father and I have discussed it, and now that we know Bert actually didn’t harm Carl’s rat, we’re considering letting you keep him, when and if he comes back around.”

  “But only if you take him to the vet and make sure he’s healthy,” my father added.

  “Okay,” I said. I pushed a bite of lasagna around with my fork.

  “We thought you’d be happy,” my father said.

  “I am happy,” I said. And I was, a little bit. It was great to know that I could keep Bert. But I wasn’t sure I’d ever see him again. And if I did, would he even want to be my pet, after the way I’d yelled at him — and how I’d assumed he’d gone on a zombie rampage?

  I managed to eat a few bites of lasagna, enough that I could be excused from the table, and I went to my room. I distracted myself by straightening and cleaning. I set aside The Cat Book; maybe tomorrow after the planetarium, Danny and I could go to the library so I could return it. I put all of the YummCo Organic Kitty Superfood I bought in a bag, which I decided to donate to YummCo Animal Pals. And then I lay down on my bed and tried to read a different book, one of my old favorites, about a girl and her brother who time travel. I knew how it was going to end, so it wasn’t long before I fell asleep. I dreamed about being chased through time by giant rats and headless frogs.

  When I woke up on Saturday morning, I was glad to be in my own bed, with no rats or frogs in sight. The sun was shining, and it looked like it was going to be a beautiful day. I ate my cereal while my parents attempted to feed the twins.

  “Hey,” I said. “Danny and I were thinking of going to the planetarium today. I know I’m grounded, but I was hoping it would be okay, if maybe we all go together?”

  “Do you want to go to the planetarium and look at the stars and planets?” Mom asked Emmett and Ezra.

  “Stars!” shouted Emmett, dribbling a fistful of oatmeal back into his bowl.

  “Pwanets!” yelled Ezra.

  “That sounds like a yes,” my mother said.

  “They don’t allow cameras in the planetarium,” I warned them.

  “I think we’ll survive,” said Mom.

  “In fact, I think we’re going to have a stellar time,” my father said, giving me a wink.

  “Ooh, ‘A Stellar Time’ would make a great title for a blog entry!” Mom exclaimed. I rolled my eyes. Some things never change, I guess.

  I got dressed after breakfast and went outside to wait while my parents got the twins ready. That’s when I heard it.

  “Meeeeeow.”

  And then I saw it.

  Our backyard was covered with dragonflies, at least a dozen of them, their wings glittering in the sun. I didn’t need to look too closely to know that none of the dragonflies had heads. Because there, sitting under the rhododendron bush, was Bert.

  “You came back,” I said.

  “Meeeeeow.”

  I ran over to him and knelt down. “Thank you for the dragonflies,” I said. “They’re beautiful . . . in a way. It must have taken you forever to catch all of them. Is that why you’ve been gone for so long?”

  “Meow.”

  He was probably down by the stream in the woods behind my house the whole time, I realized. It was always buzzing with dragonflies there.

  “I’m sorry I believed Carl. I know you’re not a zombie cat. You’re just . . . different. And different is more than okay with me.”

  Bert pushed his head into my hand and rubbed against my fingers, purring.

  “I know you have secrets,” I whispered. “Someday, I hope I’ll know some of them.”

  When Bert shifted, I noticed something underneath him: it was one of the YummCo Animal Pals flyers. Well, some of it, at least; the photo of Mr. Yumm was ripped so he was missing his head.

  I turned to Bert, and his yellow eyes seemed to look right into mine. And then, slowly, he blinked.

  So, let me get this straight,” said the Big Boss. “Not only have you two still not located Y-91, you also didn’t manage to apprehend the suspects you saw on the Green?”

  “They were on bikes,” Greg tried to explain. “They rode pretty fast.”

  “It looked like th
ey were kids, anyway. I assume they were just out pulling pranks,” Kari said.

  “Assume nothing,” said the Big Boss. “I assumed you two wouldn’t fail me. I was wrong. And I hate being wrong.”

  “Well, we didn’t fail completely,” Greg said, putting a green file on the desk.

  “What’s this?” asked the Big Boss.

  “It’s a Lost Pet sign. While we were out searching, I found it taped to a tree in the neighborhood near the woods,” Greg explained.

  “I’ve already traced the e-mail address at the bottom, and you wouldn’t believe who it belongs to,” said Kari. “Roxanne Hurley — one of the secretaries here. The one who was asking about the salmonella outbreak the other day.”

  “Well, I guess there’s use for you two yet,” the Big Boss said, smiling.

  Kari folded her hands in her lap primly. She smiled, too.

  “Would you excuse us, Kari?” the Big Boss said.

  “What?” Kari asked.

  “I need to talk something over with Greg. A very exciting opportunity,” the Big Boss explained.

  “Oh. Okay,” said Kari. “Of — of course.”

  Greg? Kari thought, as she left the office. Why does he get an exciting opportunity? Finding that sign on the tree was just dumb luck. Emphasis on the dumb.

  She turned around and saw the office door closing slowly, the Big Boss and Greg still talking. Without her.

  “You won’t want to pass this up, Greg,” the Big Boss was saying. “Believe me.”

  “Sounds like . . . fun,” Greg said.

  “Indeed,” said the Big Boss, stroking the photo on the Lost Pet sign. “The fun has just begun-co.”

  Many thanks to Barry Goldblatt, who gave me the idea in the first place; fearless editor Sarah Ketchersid, who took a chance on my pitch for a series about a cat-who-might-be-a-zombie; Ryan Andrews, who brought Bert and Mellie and their creepy small-town world to life; the team at Candlewick Press, for their continued support; Jamie Michalak and Anika Denise, for being my first and best readers; Jenny Choy and Melanie Cordova, for their thoughtful reviews; Scott and Camden, for giving me the time and space to write; and Pearl, my beloved and very ornery cat, who was a big inspiration. She didn’t live long enough to see this book published, but I like to think that as long as Bert exists on these pages, she does, too.